News Quirks (7/23/14)

Curses, Foiled Again

After a camera was found secretly recording in the women's locker room at a fitness gym in Seekonk, Mass., police examined the video and named a club member as their suspect because it shows the man setting up the hidden camera. (Associated Press)

A burglar who stole two cash registers and three plasma TVs from a pub in Accrington, England, stashed the items in his car. When he returned to the pub for more, two thieves snatched his loot. Authorities said surveillance video of the parking lot showed the burglar, identified as David Douglas Greaves, 43, with a "look of confusion" when he found the items missing. Police arrested Greaves and the two thieves, whom they also identified from surveillance video. (Britain's Accrington Observer)

Sex Is Its Own Punishment

British authorities said an 18-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman died after falling from a sixth-floor balcony where they were observed "frolicking." Police Inspector Shaun Carre-Brown said the students were attending a party in London, and resident of a neighboring apartment building witnessed them "trying to have sex." (BBC News)

No Sex Is Its Own Punishment

The four World Cup teams that banned their players from having sex during the tournament — Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile and Mexico — all made early exits from the competition, according to the news outlet Quartz. Players on champion Germany's team were allowed to have sex. Restrictions varied from team to team. Brazil allowed players to have sex but no "acrobatics," for example, while Costa Rica said players could have sex but "not all night." (Moscow Times)

Second-Amendment Follies

Geoffrey Hawk, 44, a vendor at a gun show in Bloomsburg, Pa., accidentally shot a 25-year-old woman in the leg while demonstrating a gun and a concealed-carry wallet holster. Hawk told police he thought the gun was unloaded. (Associated Press)

Gene Kelley reported that a 105 mm howitzer shell blew through the wall of his home in Wyandotte, Okla., hit the ceiling and damaged another wall. Ottawa County sheriff's investigators said the 14.5-by-3.5-inch shell came from a historic artillery canon fired at a gun show three miles away. (Pittsburg, Kan.'s KOAM-TV)

Police in Albuquerque, N.M., charged John Ruiz, 41, with child endangerment after he left his loaded 22 pistol with his 11-year-old daughter to protect herself while he went to get a tattoo. (Albuquerque Journal)

A woman unloading groceries with her mother in Dolan Springs, Ariz., was shot in the stomach by a.22-caliber rifle hidden in the backseat of her station wagon that accidentally fired. Police said the victim's husband had stolen the rifle during a home burglary earlier that day. (Phoenix's AZfamily.com)

A 51-year-old woman who said she slammed the butt end of a shotgun on the floor during a family dispute "to make a point" accidentally shot herself in the face, according to police in Fremont Township, Mich. (Michigan's MLive.com)

No-Fun City

New York City police are cracking down on underground acrobats: pass-the-hat performers who flip, somersault and pole dance among subway riders on trains. Police made more than 240 arrests in the first six months of 2014, compared with fewer than 40 during the same time a year ago. (Associated Press)

No-Fun Country

Bus riders in Winnipeg, Manitoba, who play a musical instrument, sing or offer a live musical performance on a city bus risk a $100 fine, according to a new transit bylaw approved by the city's executive policy committee. (CBC News)

Lawmakers in Mississauga, Ontario, voted to limit the height of clotheslines to 3 meters. The new bylaw stems from a complaint by Steve and Joanne DeVoe, who offered "hundreds" of photos of more than 15 clotheslines on neighboring property, some "at heights exceeding 20 ft." The couple's objections began five years ago, after they knocked down their existing house and built a bigger one with a view into their neighbors' yards. (Toronto Star)

Lactation Follies

Hoping to encourage more mothers to breast-feed, health officials in Mexico City launched a campaign that featured posters showing topless actresses and the slogan, "Don't turn your back on them ... Give them your breast." Women's groups and health advocates promptly objected. "It's not only a very terrible campaign in terms of how it looks, but it's also the message that if you don't breast-feed, you are a bad mother," said Regina Tames of the reproductive rights group GIRE. After removing the pictures of the topless actresses from the city's website, Mexico City's health director said the campaign would focus on opening 92 lactation rooms and two milk banks. (NPR)

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